Certain medical treatments involve inserting a tube, such as a catheter, a needle, a cannula, an endoscope, etc., into a patient and delivering a therapeutic agent to the patient via the tube. In some cases, the tube delivers the therapeutic agent for a systemic impact, for example so the therapeutic agent disperses throughout the patient to treat a disease that is likewise spread throughout the patient's body. In other cases, the tube delivers the therapeutic agent to a specific site that is diseased or that may otherwise need treatment. For example, such a site might be a diseased area of a heart, an artery, or a vein; a lesion; or cardiovascular tissue that is ischemic, necrotic, or otherwise impaired.
However, the effectiveness of certain therapeutic agents may diminish as result of biomechanical force, shear, or stress experienced during delivery. For example, excessive shear, shear force, or stress can impair the ability of a stem cell or a progenitor cell to function as intended, to evolve, to differentiate, to grow properly, or even to live. At an extreme, excessive shear can damage or even rupture cell membranes or cause lysis. More insidiously, lower levels of shear can negatively impact a cell's therapeutic potential, in a manner that may compromise treatment or produce an unexpected result. In the case of relatively new treatments, the amount of stress or shear that a therapeutic agent can tolerate during delivery may not be well known, and success of such treatments can be at risk.
One approach to delivering therapeutic agents that are susceptible to stress-induced damage involves simply extending the time span of delivery, based on the premise that slower delivery will translate to lower stress. However, overly extending delivery time is often undesirable. For example, delivery of stem or progenitor cells to cardiovascular tissue may involve blocking or occluding blood flow during cell delivery, such as via inflating a balloon situated in a vascular lumen. Blocking blood flow for an extended amount of time can have dire consequences, including causing ischemia or even death.
In view of the aforementioned representative deficiencies in the art (or some other related shortcoming), need exists for an improved technology for delivering therapeutic agents that are susceptible to shear, stress, lysis, unintended transformation, undesirable response or mutation, or some other potentially detrimental condition or change associated with delivery. Need also exists for a method and system that can monitor or detect shear, stress, lysis, or some other potentially detrimental condition that a therapeutic agent may experience during delivery. A further need exists for a tool that can provide guidance or feedback to a physician or some other healthcare practitioner during a therapeutic intervention so that the practitioner can avoid inadvertently reducing the effectiveness of the therapeutic agent. Yet another need exits for a technology that can help a healthcare practitioner deliver a therapeutic agent at an appropriate rate. A technology addressing one or more such needs would benefit healthcare via increasing treatment effectiveness and efficiency.